Rotterdam to host zero emissions aviation collaboration

The participants will develop a concept of operations for hydrogen in airports and demonstration flights to European destinations by the end of 2024 and readying for commercial passenger flights by 2025.

To make the first hydrogen flight from Rotterdam, the team will investigate operation at the airport by developing on-the-ground infrastructure and procedures to satisfactorily pilot distribution, storage, and dispensing of hydrogen for aviation. 

“Having this consortium, including Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport and Shell, moves the ball a significant distance down the field towards our goal line of commercial operations,” Arnab Chatterjee, VP, Infrastructure, ZeroAvia, said in a statement. “There is still a lot of work to do, but with clear milestones and targets identified, the hard work really starts now towards delivering the infrastructure and exploring the protocols and standards required.”

The project targets supporting aircraft operations using gaseous hydrogen to fuel ZeroAvia’s hydrogen-electric ZA600 engines. For the demonstration flights the parties aim to establish routes to airports in Europe within 250 nautical mile radius of Rotterdam. This project will also target the development of aviation specific standards and protocols around safety, refuelling and hydrogen management.